Re: Can a computer virus kill the CPU?

Unknown_ghost wrote:

Ok, I noticed that this was a rather dead thread but in my very short
research into such topics i stumbled across it as must have many other
curious readers. To put a somewhat meaningful and final answer to the
question, YES viruses CAN cause damage to your hardware. Granted, there
have hardly been any seen that can. Writing the code is EXTREMELY
complex and for any hacker to even WANT to do so is crazy and cost them
hundreds of dollars in experimental fees (or they better have one hell
of a warranty on there machine).


Nonsense. There is a free BIOS flashing utility written in Pascal that has extensive documentation how BIOS flashing works on a wide variety of chipset, so there's no need for testing. Even further, unless you overwrite the boot block (which is possible on some chipsets), you can always do a recovery flash.

Step 1: Over-clock the CPU from BIOS

> Step 2: Disable fans

Step 3: Disable all protection in the BIOS.

Its that simple folks. What will result is your CPU overheating and
causing many of the other wiring/circuitry to melt.


Since Pentium III and AMD's Athlon any chipset has been able to simply shutdown the system due to overheat. Pentium IV and K8 are fully able to trottle themselves down to not overheat at all.
And even on older chipsets an overheat will initially cause random code execution, which easily leads to a triple fault and therefore to a soft reset.

> The code that protects your computer from over-heating (simplified of
> course) basically reads "If CPU temp > 30 then shutdown PC" thats the
> basis for ur CPU overheating protection in the BIOS.

Aside from the little detail that this is in SM Mode and done by the ACPI firmware of the chipset, not the BIOS, this is complete nonsense. Overheat protection is done via Machine Check Exception.

2) There is nothing to be gained from it, hacking and virus making has
become a HUGE profit organization and destruction is not profitable
unless u gain access somewhere else and for something else so there is
no point.


Hint: Not everything in life is about profit. Some people harm others just for fun.
.